Delete folder recursively via php if ftp says: Prohibited directory name

Wednesday, 28th May 2008 at 09:51 (administration)
Tags: delete folder, filezilla, ftp, ncftp, php, scripting

Using eclipse to sync an ftp folder with my local XAMPP installation I ran into he following situation. I ended up with a folder created on the remote machine called 'C:\xampp\tmp' that I could not delete or even view properties or content of using any ftp client I could get hands on (filezilla, ncftp3, gnome ftp “server connect”). Since the folder was on webspace I thought: “Mmh, why not try php.” So I created a file called delfolder.php right in the folder containing the miscurious c:-directory and finally came up with this:

< ?php function rm_recursive($filepath) {     if (is_dir($filepath) && !is_link($filepath)) {         if ($dh = opendir($filepath)) {             while (($sf = readdir($dh)) !== false) {                 if ($sf == '.' || $sf == '..' ) {                     continue;                 }                 if (!rm_recursive($filepath.'/'.$sf)) {                     throw new Exception($filepath.'/'.$sf.' could not be deleted.');                 }             }             closedir($dh);         }         return rmdir($filepath);     }     return unlink($filepath); } // Path to directory you want to delete $directory = 'C:\xampp\tmp'; // Delete it if (rm_recursive($directory)) {     echo "{$directory} has been deleted"; } else {     echo "{$directory} could not be deleted"; } [/sourcecode] This, of course, only works if you have either direct access via shell (but than again why not just use rm -Rf 'C:\xampp\tmp') or FTP and web, i.e. HTTP, access to the folder in question.

Resources:

• Delete Folder with PHP?
• php rmdir